When Nurses Eat Their Young: 4 Ways to Respond to Bullying in Nursing

Bullying doesn’t only happen in classrooms or playgrounds. In fact, it’s very common in the healthcare profession. New nurses and even those who have been in practice for several years have their fair share of bullyingin nursing, getting bullied and seeing someone else falling prey to it.

When nurses eat their young, what exactly do you need to do? Here’s a list of responses you can take to address nursebullying.

“One of the best ways to address bullying is to confront the person and the behavior.”

Before talking to your co-worker, it’s best if you can practice the things you’re going to say beforehand. This action allows you to build better self-confidence and to think of the best way to deliver your points. You can ask a friend to hear your thoughts or use a mirror to rehearse positive body language.

Confrontation should happen in a private area and not where patients can see you arguing with each other. You should also avoid catching the bully off guard, such as calling him out when all the other nurses are in the area, as it will only put him in defensive mode.

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2. Don’t be a victim

Bullies feed on people who have low self-esteem. If they know they can pick on you, there’s a good chance you’ll find them gnawing on the remaining confidence you have.

To avoid falling victim to bullying, do a spot check and focus more on what you can do. By concentrating on your accomplishments, you can improve your self-esteem without directly ignoring your co-worker.

“I once had a head nurse who always had something demeaning to say to us even though we fulfilled our shifts well. One time, before she even had the chance to negatively criticize my work, I approached her first. After greeting her well, I started reporting everything about my patient. I gathered all my confidence that time, and it was the best move I’ve ever made,” a ward nurse said.

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Bully nurses often target the newly hires or those they feel aren’t deserving of a promotion. They also like to pick on nurses who they think are receiving special favors and treatments from doctors or other coworkers.

3. Find support

If your co-worker isn’t open to a friendly dialogue or if you feel threatened by his behavior, then it’s a wise move if you can seek your nurse manager’s help. The manager can establish standards for what behaviors are acceptable or not. He can also impose policies, procedures and even the repercussion of bullying in your workplace.

They can give you excessive workloads or publicly scrutinize your work. They can also yell at you for not completing a task correctly. Some bullies may even spread rumors and gossip just to downgrade you. Although these things can be demeaning, it’s important that you know who you are and what you’re capable of doing. Once you give in, you’ll only encourage them to continue their behavior.

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Nurses eating their young isn’t new. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the most common reasons why nurses quit their jobs. It isn’t only damaging to the profession, but it’s costly as well. Every year, bullying costs around $4 Billion.

Rozzette Cabrera is a registered nurse pursuing her childhood dream of becoming a professional writer. She spent a few years putting her profession into practice until she decided to take her chances with freelance writing over a year ago. Her life has never been the same since then.

Nurseslabs.com is an education and nursing lifestyle website geared towards helping student nurses and registered nurses with knowledge for the progression and empowerment of their nursing careers. Since we started in 2010, Nurseslabs has become one of the most trusted nursing sites helping thousands of aspiring nurses achieve their goals. Our ultimate goal is to help address the nursing shortage by inspiring aspiring nurses that a career in nursing is an excellent choice, guiding students to become RNs, and for the working nurse – helping them achieve success in their careers!